


if it costs me my reputation (take it, i'll give it all away)

by stonesnuggler



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Asexual Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14237529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonesnuggler/pseuds/stonesnuggler
Summary: After Cal has left, Ryan notices a speck of paint on the back of his hand, still bold and pigmented. He swipes at it once with his finger, and it blends in seamlessly, like it was never there at all. Perfect camouflage.





	if it costs me my reputation (take it, i'll give it all away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueorangecrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Blueday the Thirteenth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3546212) by [blueorangecrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush). 



> hi blueorangecrush!! 
> 
> lemme tell you how much i miss the new york islanders of yesteryear and how much fun this was to play around with. this was such a fun world to write in, so hopefully you like this little take on it!
> 
> title from jon bellion's "new york soul pt. 2" 
> 
> you have to read blueorangecrush's "Blueday the Thirteenth" for this to make Literally Any Sense At All, so please go read that lovely piece before this one!!

The coffee maker isn’t working. 

Ryan knows this because usually it’s programmed so that he can walk out, nearly knock his favorite mug off the counter in an effort to grab it, but eventually finally get a grip on it long enough to remove the glass carafe from the station and pour himself a cup of coffee. All of this usually occurs within five minutes of him waking up.

But here he is,  _ seven _ minutes after waking up, poking and prodding at buttons to try and get this god forsaken contraption to work, and with no coffee to show for his efforts. 

It’s pretty miserable. 

“Oh, for fucks sake,” he grumbles, pushing a different combination of buttons. Finally, something clicks, the machine sputters to life, and Ryan can’t help but sigh in relief. Johnny’s coffee maker is still a piece of shit, and it’s times like this that he regrets moving out of Johnny’s because he seems to be the only one it consistently operates for. 

Sent Message:

**ryan || 11/13 || 8:49a**

Your coffee maker is still a piece of shit

 

Inbox: 

**johnny t || 11/13 || 8:50a**

fuck off stromer

 

Now that he’s got time to kill while the coffee is going, he leaves it do what it was  _ supposed  _ to do half an hour ago and gets in the shower, quickly stripping down and getting into barely-warm water in an attempt to wake up. 

It takes until he’s rinsing off his shower gel when Ryan notices something a little… off. 

His arm looks… purple? Like, not enough to be super noticeable or anything, but enough to give reasonable suspicion that one of the guys poured something into his shower gel when they were over for dinner last week, and he’s mostly showered at the rink since then. Which of course he wouldn’t have realized when he poured it into his hand, because the gel itself is dark. 

It’s a possibility, he reasons. Marty did show up to practice with pink hair after someone fucked with his shampoo last week. It only makes sense. 

Anyway, it’s not incredibly noticeable, so whoever did it -- he’d put good money on the Minnesota twins -- won’t have any satisfaction, so take that. 

After pulling on sweats and a t-shirt, Ryan makes his way to the kitchen, finally  _ finally  _ pouring himself a cup of coffee. As usual for most of his mornings, he wants to text John and wax poetic about how he was spoiled when they lived together, how John’s coffee is always so much better. He picks up his phone to actually text John this time, but there’s already a message there.

 

Inbox:   
**Group: if you idiots change the name of this group one mo…**

**johnny t || 11/13 || 9:37a**

Check your e-mail and follow the instructions BEFORE leaving for morning skate. 

 

A furrowed brow and a couple taps later, he’s reading the email from JT that was sent to the whole team, about how players who are gay woke up marked, and his first thought -- thoughts, he supposes -- are Dylan and Matty.

He doesn’t have the chance for a second thought before his phone is ringing in his hand. 

“Hey, Cal, what’s--” 

“You got Cap’s email?” Cal says, not even letting Ryan finish his greeting. He sounds frazzled, his voice a little distant. He’s probably driving, judging by the rush of wind fuzzing through Ryan’s speaker. 

“Yeah,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “Who have you--” 

“Just a couple of the guys. I’m leaving Neiler’s now, heading over to Diesel’s, then I’m on my way to you,” Cal says, no nonsense, which makes a lot of sense in what Ryan knows about Cal Clutterbuck, what he’s here for. 

Ryan nods, forgetting Cal can’t see him and takes another drink of his coffee. “Alright, cool. I”ll see you soon.” 

/

Cal’s there in less than ten minutes, and he looks a lot less frazzled than he sounded on the phone. It’s almost unnerving how calm his features are, grocery bag in tow and blue paint smudged on his hands. 

It’s almost Islanders blue, Ryan notes, smiles a little. 

Ryan lets Cal in, leads him to the kitchen and wordlessly pours him a cup of coffee, which Cal accepts readily. 

“Thanks,” he sighs into the mug, takes a steadying drink. “Helluva morning, eh?” 

Ryan breathes a laugh, scratches at the nape of his neck. “You’ve got that right.”

Cal smiles a little at that, sets his mug down on the counter and blinks a couple times. He looks downright exhausted, but with a determined edge that Ryan usually only sees on the ice. He’s got faint blue marks running down his arms, along the edge of his jaw hiding behind the scruff on his face. 

Everyone has a story, Ryan supposes. 

He’s looking at Ryan like he’s thinking the same thing, and Ryan’s pulse picks up. 

The shower gel earlier, how he thought something was off, how he hasn’t really--

“Did you try and --” Cal starts, but cuts himself off and looks like he’s choosing his next words carefully. “Uh, I mean. Did you try and get a hold of your brothers?” 

Ryan takes a deep breath, tugs the sleeve of his hoodie even further over his hands and shakes his head. “Not yet. Dylan’s probably still asleep, and I don’t think it would get down far enough to Matt.” 

Cal nods, understanding. “Well, lets get this started, then.”

As Cal is pushing the paint into his skin with the sponge, he can’t help but think back to this morning, the splotchy blue he’s hiding under his hoodie and sweats. Sure, there have been moments where he’s thought of men in a different way, and he’s never been one to judge. He played major junior hockey, afterall. With the lack of personal space in that league, you learned quickly who was uncomfortable with what level of affection. Even before then, when he was fifteen and already in locker rooms with John and he had to learn how to-- 

He wonders, absently, how Drouin and MacKinnon are faring. 

Anyway, Drouin’s tweet about the New Year’s Kiss wasn’t a lie, is what he’s trying to say. 

“You’re good,” Cal says after a while, and it takes Ryan a split second to realize that he means that he’s done with the facepaint. 

“Yeah,” Ryan says, a little nonsensically. “Thanks, man.”

After Cal has left, Ryan notices a speck of paint on the back of his hand, still bold and pigmented. He swipes at it once with his finger, and it blends in seamlessly, like it was never there at all. Perfect camouflage. 

/

Walking into practice is like something out of a high school movie. Like one of those scenes where the popular kids are walking down the hallway and everyone is looking at them, envious.

Except not like that at all. 

Instead of envy, the air is charged with the type of anxious energy akin to the five minutes it takes to dry scrape the ice before overtime. Not necessarily bad, but bad things could certainly happen. 

“What’s got you all looking so blue, boys?” Zeeker says says, smiling wide as he stalks in, Marty in tow, as usual. It earns a couple laughs, enough to break the tension, even if a couple guys are afraid to laugh. 

Ryan sits in his stall, grateful he already has his underarmour on so it’s easy to just pull his pads on, lace his skates up, throw his helmet on and head out to the ice. 

He’s taking a couple easy laps, just shaking off the rust of yesterday’s day off, when a puck hits in him in the skates. 

He doesn’t need to look to know it’s John. It always is, it seems. 

“Finally get the coffee maker working?” he asks, the smallest smile upturning the side of his lips, painted blue. If Ryan didn’t know John, he wouldn’t have caught it. But he does, so he did. 

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Ryan chirps back easily, elbowing John away as he handles the puck that hit his skates. 

John pinches him in the back of the arm, just like he always does, how he always did when they spent summers training back in Mississauga; not enough to hurt, but enough to feel something. It was always a little grounding, a reminder that he was there, a reminder of the task at hand. 

It has the opposite effect this time, because Ryan looks up at John, sees the blue paint carefully applied to his face and wonders how much of it is paint at all. If  _ any  _ of it is paint. 

He wonders if John looks anything like him. If he knew before today. If he’s going through it, just like Ryan is, and is just putting on a brave face for the sake of the team.

He wonders if he’s talked to Mouls at all today. 

“You alright?” John asks, after what’s probably been too long of a silence. 

Ryan nods, smiles a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” 

“Good,” John says, even though he doesn’t sound too convinced, then taps at Ryan’s knee with his stick before skating off. 

As he skates away, Ryan notices a patch of skin between the collar of John’s jersey and the hair at the back of his neck, clearly missing paint, white as day against the dark blue surrounding it. 

There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach that he didn’t expect, a trance he’s knocked out of when Travis shoves him as he makes his way to the ice. 

That settles that, then. 

/ 

Practice is relatively easy, except for the fact that everyone is carefully drinking water instead of splashing it everywhere, which would be a little funny considering other circumstances. 

It’d be funnier if they couldn’t feel the reporters watching their every move, more-so than usual. 

In any case, it’s over soon enough, and the energy is a little less frantic than it was this morning as they’re all getting ready for cool-down workouts, heading to showers. 

Ryan’s wiping at the paint on his face, getting as much of it off as he can, when John walks past and flicks his ear. 

“Would you quit it, you fucking pest,” Ryan laughs, throwing the towel in his hands at him as he walks away.

“You’re one to talk, Stromey,” Leds chirps, rolling his eyes as he tosses a tape ball in Ryan’s direction. 

Ryan flips him off before taking a deep breath, tugging his underarmour over his head, tossing it into his locker. He’s grateful for locker room culture, for years of trained eyes, and for the fact that this blue paint might have started smudging elsewhere. 

“You were only supposed to put the paint on your face, Stromer,” he hears John say as he’s walking toward the shower. “How’d you manage to get it on the back of your arm?” 

“Fuck off, Johnny,” Ryan says easily, and where he was expecting laughter, he got silence. His eyes widen as he stops in his tracks, turns around to see John’s face mirroring his own expression. 

“He didn’t say anything, Stromer,” Travis says, slow and calculated.

/

There’s a patch of deep blue on the back of Ryan’s arm, right in the gap in his pads, right where JT always pinches. At first glance, it could pass for a bruise, but as Ryan looks at it in the mirror, towel around his waist, it’s anything but. 

Islanders blue, deep in the center, blending out until it matches the easy, pale blue patches that scatter over of the rest of his skin. 

Casey finds him like that when he walks in to take his own shower, nudges him with his elbow. “I’ve got you if you need anything, Stromer.” 

Ryan nods, throat tight. “I guess I just--” he starts, pauses, clears his throat. “I didn’t think about it much until just now.” 

Casey shrugs. “That’s cool, too. You know the team has your back. Drop by mine and Matt’s later if you need, okay?” 

“Yeah,” Ryan says, the weight on his chest lifted a little. “Thanks, Zeeks.” 

The locker room is pretty cleared out when Ryan finally makes his way out there, everyone either touching up the paint on their faces before heading out, or just gone completely. John’s nowhere to be found and Ryan sighs, tugs on his sweats, tosses on a toque and makes his way out. 

He’s walking down the hallway when he hears it, a little fuzzy.  _ ‘Ryan, wait.’ _

Ryan stops, turns around and sees John walking toward him, hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie. 

‘ _ I’m never Ryan to you, _ ’ Ryan thinks, carefully and John almost smiles. Ryan can see it threatening to surface.

“Only when it’s important,” John says, out loud, no-nonsense. “We should talk.” 

Ryan sighs, a little sharp. “I’m not sure there’s much to talk about.” 

It’s a bit of a low blow, but here’s the deal. Ryan knows about John’s insufferably tragic feelings about Matt Moulson, knows how John just walked right into getting his heart broken. He knows there was something with Colin right after that.

He knows exactly where he stands, is really what he’s trying to say. 

He hears something vaguely like static as John crosses his arms across his chest. “How do you figure?” 

Way to go, Stromer. 

He sighs again. “Fuck, okay, you’re right.” 

“I know,” John says, sighing himself. “Trust me it’s just-- There’s some stuff I have to tell you, is all.” 

‘ _ A rejection, _ ’ Ryan thinks, before he can catch himself, forgetting this whole fucking telepathy thing. God, what the fuck. 

“Don’t assume things,” John says, gently, then pushes Ryan’s toque over his eyes. “I’ll come to yours around five?” 

Ryan barely hears that, blood rushing in his ears, pulse picking up as he pushes his hat back up. “Uh, yeah, no that’s. Yeah.”

“Great,” John says, and then he’s walking back toward the garage. 

“Great,” Ryan says to himself.

/

So he likes John. 

This is new, and terrifying in the way that it’s not new  _ nor _ terrifying at all. 

John was the first one who pushed him to his limits when he was just fifteen, the first one to call him after he got drafted, the first one to help him shake of the disappointment of being sent down, the first one to the celebrations every time the puck hits the back of the net, the first--

So, it makes sense that he’s the first guy that makes his heart do something stupid like this. 

The doorbell rings at five-to, and Ryan takes a deep breath, then another before getting up and opening the door. 

John has washed the remaining paint from his face, but there’s still a slight blue tinge, but it’s nothing like Ryan’s. Less permanent. Less real. 

He shrugs off his jacket, draping it over the couch and Ryan can see exactly how not-blue he actually is. He’s got to have some kind of secret life, right? That’s what he’s about to tell him. John’s about to sit him down and level with him and say ‘too bad, so sad, Ryan, I’m the straightest thing on this side of the border and I’m never going to love you’ and Ryan’s just going to have to deal with hearing his thoughts about his perfect wife and his two and a half kids and a white picket-- 

“Before you jump to conclusions,” John says, plopping down on the couch, “I’m into you.” 

Ryan’s eyes widen, tension bleeding out of his chest as he sighs, and John smiles shyly. 

“But what about Matt and--” 

“It sucked for a while,” John says, jaw set. “But it sucks less now. I just need you to know that I can’t… I can’t be into you the way that most people are into each other.” 

Ryan’s eyebrows furrow, and John chews on his lip. 

“Sex isn’t my thing,” John says, states it plain as day, like he was just informing Ryan about weather that day. “Like, everything is still… in working order, I just don’t get anything out of it.”

Ryan relaxes, throws himself onto the couch and sighs, letting himself smile for the first time since practice today. 

_‘So you still wanna date me,’_ Ryan thinks, tucking his toes under John’s leg and John instantly turns to look at him.

“I mean,” John says, and there’s a twinge of color coming to his face. “If you’d want to.” 

“Why wouldn’t I want to?” Ryan says, jabbing at him with his toes. 

John shrugs. 

“I like you because you’re you, Johnny. You not wanting to get off, or not wanting to get me off, or anything like that? That doesn’t bother me. It shouldn’t bother anyone,” Ryan says, grabbing the pillow from next to him and picking at a loose thread. 

“You’re sweet,” John says, voice soft and Ryan’s face heats. He holds an arm out and Ryan snuggles under, settling his face in the crook of John’s neck. “Even if you look like someone tried coloring you in with a crayon.”

Ryan jabs him in the side, making him squirm away laughing, and pouts until he gets a soft kiss for his efforts.

 

// 

 

When he wakes up, the first thing Ryan notices is that John isn’t there, like he was last night after they finally stumbled to Ryan’s room, still half asleep from when they accidentally crashed on the couch. 

There’s a fleeting moment where that feels strange, but then something settles in that feels even stranger. 

It’s a creeping feeling in the back of his mind asking why John Tavares would even be in his bed in the first place. 

He doesn’t have much time to think about it before his phone is ringing on his bedside table. Ryan picks it up, blinking blearily at the screen, swiping to answer without even bothering to look at the screen. 

“Are you dead or something?” the voice on the other end of the phone crows. “I’ll be at yours in less than ten. If you’re not ready, I’ll dump cold water on you.”

“Johnny?” 

John laughs. “Good morning sunshine. Be ready, I’ll be there soon.” 

The line goes dead and Ryan finally has a chance to look at his phone, and thinks about restarting it after he realizes what he saw. 

On his lock screen in bright white text, over the picture of the New York Skyline: November 13th, 2015. 9:47am.

“That can’t be right,” Ryan says to himself, instantly opening his phone and going to his texts.

Everything was just as it was when he went to sleep.

> Inbox: (5 unread)   
>  **Momma Bear || 11/12 || 6:14p**
> 
> Make a difference xoxo

 

**Group: if you idiots change the name of this group one mo…**

**hammer || 11/12 || 10:53p**

Friday the thirteenth tomorrow boys!!! Bets on who’s gonna have the most bad luck tomorrow my vote is already on Rocket   
  
**Johnny Boychuk || 11/12 || 10:53p** ****  
i know where you sleep, hamonic.  ****  
  


>   
>  **Group: Bro Beans** ****  
> **Matty || 11/12 || 11:43p** **  
> ** **  
> ** [IMG_1891.JPG] lolololol

 

  
**Dyl || 11/12 || 11:45p**

Why did we ever let matt believe he was funny asking for a friend

 

Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing about some fucking wish turning everyone -- 

He blinks a few times, then lifts his covers up, pawing at the sheets. Nothing but the puff of his duvet. He tosses it aside, looks over the side of his bed and -- 

His fingers catch on the worn paperback book, pages a little crumpled from where it must’ve fallen to the floor. 

_ Am I Blue?  _ The cover reads, and Ryan remembers. 

He pushes the sleeve of his hoodie up, looks at his arm compared to the stark white sheets of his bed, and sighs. White as the day he was born. Not blue at all, and nothing anywhere saying he should look out for  _ being  _ blue. 

The feelings that turned him blue, though? Those are still there, proven by the swooping in his stomach when he sees John’s name pop up on his phone again.

He swipes and answers it. 

“I’m pulling onto your block,” John says, voice bigger than normal in the wide open space of his car. “Are you set?” 

“Yeah,” Ryan croaks, pushes his sleeve back down, grateful that he can at least come out on his own terms now. “I’ll be out in a bit.” 

He hangs up, pulls on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, tries to make his hair less of a disaster, and within five minutes, he’s in the passenger seat.

“You still good with that one Deli for breakfast?” John asks, and Ryan nods. John glances over, eyebrows furrowed and sighs. “Are you sure you’re good?” 

“Yeah, fine,” Ryan says, clearing his throat, smiling a little. “But I, uh-- I've got something to tell you."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> a huge huge HUGE thank you to bumble and bee for the cheerleading and the comforting when i thought i was going to lose my mind. thank you to lj for letting me word vomit about this, and to ki, aimee and claire for helping me develop/tweak my idea at the very beginning! you're all lovely individuals and i cherish you greatly.


End file.
